METHODS OF EXPRESSION POWER
POWER POWER. Power (often known as Energy, Strength, Ft, that quality of style which makes it impressive. . cision and Perspicuity make the reader know Nr meant ; Power makes him feel what is meant. Pr ' and Perspicuity make the hearer know what he ot do; Power makes him resolve to do it. These words, which have their synonyms in all lane energy, strength, force, vigor—do certainly express an ic. otherwise definable than by interchange of these words. . convey an idea which the common sense of men never con . with the impressiveness of a mathematical theorem, or ths _ bird of paradise, or that of the tail of a peacock. These are ultimate in all languages ; so that we cannot add to tin nificance, except by material emblems. We can only as energy is a peculiar kind of impressiveness ; it is the imprs ness of strength, as distinct from that of clearness ; it is 0 pressiveness of force, as distinct from that of beauty ; it is ti pressiveness of vigor, as distinct from that of vivacity. —Pax ( I . ) In Thought, Power is dependent chiefly (a) Sincerity, and (b) Directness. (a) Sincerity combines reality of conviction, earnestness of purpose, with freedom from unfairness from dishonesty. The Latin original meant "wit! as applied to honey that was just what it , Ported to bernbineech we apply the word when air delicacy, that their ears am. —Frenonso. 1g for exact utterance of truth se precision, a savage form of The common mind will not rrmorary if it is not mologically loose, ibstantially exact. as proved himself the popular voice • but exact title, • • f has proved him IV. (2) In Expression. Precision and perspicuity being assumed, power is dependent chiefly on (a) plainness, and (b) conciseness. (a) Plainness of speech indicates that the writer has something to say, and that his reliance is upon the ideas themselves—not upon their verbal apparel. The first valuable power in a reasonable mind, one would say, was the power of plain statement, or the power to receive things as they befall, and to transfer the picture of them to another mind unaltered. 'Tis a good rule of rhetoric which Schlegel gives" In good prose every word is underscored ; " which, I suppose, means never italicize. Spartans, Stoics, heroes, saints, and gods use a short and positive speech. They are never off their centers. As soon as they swell and pant and find truth not enough for them, softening of the brain has already begun. It seems as if inflation were a disease incident to too much use of words ; and the remedy lay in recourse to things. I am daily struck with the forcible understatement of people who have no literary habits. The low expression is strong and agreeable. The citizen dwells in delusions. His dress and draperies, house and stables, occupy him. The poor countryman, having no circumstances of carpets, coaches, dinners, wine and dancing in head to confuse him, is able to look straight at you, without refraction or prismatic glories, and he sees whether your head is -addled by this mixture of wines. The common people diminish ; "a cold snap ; " "it rains easy ; " "good haying weather. " When a farmer means to tell you that he is doing well with his farm, he says : "I don't work as hard as I did, and I don't mean to. " When he wishes to condemn any treatment of soils or stock, he says : "It won't do any good. " Under the Catskill mountains the boy in the steamboat said, "Come up here, Tony ; it looks pretty out-of-doors. "—EMERSON. "I don't know how to apologize, " Max Adeler makes a ragamuffin who is ashamed of himself exclaim ; "but if you want to kick me down the front steps, just kick away—I'll bear it like an angel. " Even a sophisticated mind is caught by plain utterances. The man who has spoiled his tastes and sympathies by an artificial and CHAP. MEHL BLUNTNESS. 451 showy cultivation is nevertheless struck by the vigor and raciness of plain sense. In the phrase of Horace, though he has driven nature out of his understanding with a fork, she yet returns when truth appears. And this is a hold which a plain speaker has upon an audience of false tastes and false refinement. There is an instinctive sagacity in man which needs this plainness of presentation, and which craves it and is satisfied with it. —SaanD. Coleridge says of Roger North : His language gives us the very nerve, pulse, and sinew, of a hearty, healthy, conversational English; and he gives this illustration of his style : He appeared very ambitions to learn to write ; and one of the attorneys got a board knocked up at a window on the top of a staircase ; and that was his desk, where he sat and wrote after copies of court and other hands that the clerks gave him. On the title-page to "Put Yourself in his Place, " Charles Reads thus translates a famous sentence of Horace's : I will frame a work of fiction upon notorious fact, so that anybody shall think he can do the seine; shall labor and toil, attempting the same, and fall—such le the power of sequence and connection in writing. Bluntnessis a degree of plainness sometimes permissible, and always forcible where it does not suggest impropriety. Grand, rough old Martin Luther Bloomed fables, flowers on fume The better the uncouther : Do roses stick like burrs 1. —Bnowniira. Some people are so affected in their delicacy, that their ears appear to be the nicest part about them. —Fmamai. I have said that the popular craving for exact utterance of truth is often excessive. Men crave a coarse precision, a savage form of truth. Yet it is the truth after all. The common mind will not long retain a label of a distinguished contemporary if it is not true. Popular slang, in such cases, though etymologically loose, is commonly definite to the popular ear, and substantially exact. No language is more so. Thus, when a prince has proved himself bold, quick, decisive, ponderous in character, the popular voice has summed up its verdict in one figurative but exact title, "Charles the Hammer. " When a military chief has proved him IV. self sanguinary, cruel, ferocious, relentless, the people have told the whole story of his life in the single phrase, "Alva the Butcher. " The watchwords of political parties again illustrate the same thing. They are often intensely figurative ; yet, if they have great force with the people, they are as intensely true. No style can express the truth with more of that vividness which is often necessary to precise ideas in the popular mind. General Harrison owed his elevation to the presidency of our republic, in large measure to his supposed sympathy with the simple and rude usages of backwoodsmen ; and this was expressed in the old war-cry of the Whigs of 1840: "Log cabin and hard cider. " General Taylor owed his election to the same office largely to the sobriquet which his soldiers gave him in the Mexican war, "Old Rough and Ready. " General Scott was believed to have lost his election because of the nickname by which his enemies ridiculed his well-known fondness for military etiquette, "Old Fuss and Feathers. " Thousands of voters who cared nothing, and knew nothing, about the politics of the contending parties, knew as definitely as you do what those watchwords meant ; and they voted for and against the things which these words painted to their mental vision. A style in which men said what they meant, and meant what they believed, carried the day, although it was made up of popular slang. —PIUMP8. Find illustrations on pages 57, Ti, 285. Coarseness, however, enfeebles; for it produces disgust with the writer, which prejudices the reader against the views presented. "You Bcotchmen, " said Edward Irving to Chalmers, "would handle an idea as a butcher handles an ox. " It has generally happened that the most effective public speakers, whether secular or sacred, have by a fastidious class been accused of vulgarisms. So with Cicero, Burke, and Chatham ; so with Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster ; and to turn to eminent preachers, so with Luther, Latimer, and Whitefield. The reason was that, intent on the greatest good to the greatest number, they used what Dr. Johnson, after Daniel Burgess, called "market language. " And yet some carry this notion so far that they imag ins that in speech the more vulgar they are the more energetic they must be. "Nor is it true, " as Dr. Ward says, "that rough and harsh language is more strong and nervous than when the composition is smooth and harmonious. A stream which runs among stones and rocks makes more noise, from the opposition it meets with in its course ; but that which has not these impediments flows with greater force and strength. "—ThcavaT. In criticizing, we must keep in mind how the standard of propriety has varied, from age to age. The Rev. Joseph Dwight was the minister of Woodstock, Conn. , -about the year 1700. The sensational pulpit of our own time could hardly surpass him in the drollery of its expressions. "If unconverted men ever get to heaven, " he said : "they would feel as uneasy as a shad up the crotch of a white oak. " This probably seemed less offensive to his congregation than it seemed not long ago, at a prayer meeting, when Henry Ward Beecher told about certain cellars from which malarial odors arose, and said that first one of the family died and then another from these odors. "They called it mysterious Providence, " said Mr. Beecher. "No such thing ; God knows it was rotten onions. " In the use of words, again, local usage must be recognized. "Do taste this soup, " said an English young woman to the man beside her at dinner ; "it isn't half nasty. " The remark was unnoticed there, but would have been unpardonable at a Boston table. Mr. Lowell insists that "perspire" is a vulgar word, and that only " sweat " should be used. Yet in most American circles one does well to remember the distinction that a horse sweats, a man perspires, and a woman glows. The young man who began a letter to his betrothed, "Thou sweatest, " found her no longer sweet to him. Those things which it is indecent to express vividly are always such as are conceived to have some turpitude in them, either natural or moral. An example of this decency in expression, when the subject hath some natural turpitude, you will find in Martha's answer, as it is in the original, when our Saviour gave orders to remove the stone from the sepulchre of her brother Lazarus, "Lord, by this time he smelleth (Or, Reg), for he bath been dead four days. " In our version it is somewhat indelicately, not to say indecently, rendered stinketh. Our translators have in this instance unnecessarily receded from their ordinary rule of keeping as close as possible to the letter. The synecdoche in this place answers just as well in English as in Greek ; the perspicuity is such as secures the reader from the possibility of a mistake, at the same time that the expression is free from the indecency with which the other is chargeable. But if it be necessary to avoid a vivid exhibition of what appears uncleanly to the external senses, it is much more necessary in whatever may have a tendency to pollute the mind. It is not always the mention of vice, as such, which has this tendency. Many of the atrocious crimes may be mentioned with great plainness without any such danger, and therefore without the smallest indecorum. What the subjects are which are in this way dangerous, it is surely needless to explain. And as every person of sense will readily conceive the truth of the general sentiment, to propose without necessity to produce examples for the elucidation of it, might justly be charged with being a breach of that decency of which I am treating. —CAraransm. The Distinction between bluntness and coarseness is that the former is recognized by the writer as harsh, but adopted because harshness seems, under the circumstances, to be necessary ; while the latter is the unconscious manifestation of low instinct and low taste. Thus in rhythm what would if unconscious be an unpardonable blunder, may, when a certain effect is to be produced, appear an artist-stroke. For instance, And ten slow words oft creep in one doll line, is almost unmusical verse, and perfect because it is unmusical, being intended to illustrate that fault. But there would be no hope for the writer who let such verses slip into his poems without knowing that they were unmusical. So true is it that only the necessity of such utterance makes bluntness permissible, that the severest remark gains force when it can be converted without loss of distinctness into courteous expression. The edge of the axe does more execution than the head. Take the illustration at the foot of page 264. There would be a certain blunt force in saying : "You never did a good deed in your life, while your crimes are notorious. " But how much deeper the accusation sinks when it is put thus : You have done good, my lord, by stealth ; The rest Is upon record. The Velvet Clove. —In fact, we are particularly grateful to a speaker whose tact relieves us from an anticipated necessity of hearing something disagreeable. We want the presumptuous punished, but we shrink from the altercation that results when he is met with his own weapons. When an antagonist arises, not only bold enough to attack him, but skilful enough to disarm him without giving him opportunity to strike back, we put no stint upon our admiration. The iron hand within a velvet glove is the ideal protector of society. Leigh Hunt's sensitive delicacy was one of his most marked characteristics, and one that peculiarly impressed itself on those who enjoyed personal communion with him. He was delicate as a woman in conduct, in words, in was of thinking. I have heard him use paraphrase in speaking of things that the generality of men are accustomed to mention plainly, as a matter of course ; and though he could—on occasion —use very straightforward terms in treating a poetical subject warmly, or in reprobating a vice sternly, and employ very playful terms when treating a humorous subject wittily, I never heard him utter a coarse or a light word in the many times I have heard him converse with freedom among intimate friends. Airy elegance, sportive fancy, marked his lively talk ; levity never. But though Leigh Hunt was almost womanly in his scrupulous delicacy, he had not the very least touch of effeminacy in his composition. He was essentially manly—of that fine type of manliness which includes the best [Paw P7. gentleness and tenderness of womanly nature, blended with the highest moral fortitude of manhood. We know that the man who created Imogen, Portia, Viola, Rosalind, Hamlet, Romeo, Troilus, Othello, comprised this dual womanly and manly nature in his own ; and we know that Nelson, who knew not what fear was, desired when dying to have a kiss from the lips of his faithful lieutenant, Hardy. So with Leigh Hunt : he was sensitive as a woman, yet in every fiber—moral, intellectual, and physical—thoroughly a man. —MABY COWDEN CLARKE. Find illustrations on pages 11, 60. Bee also pages 29, 8948. (b) Conciseness is not synonymous with Brevity. Brevity refers only to the number of words ; conciseness refers to the amount of thought they convey. Brevity implies the use of few words, whatever the thought may be ; conciseness implies the use of no unnecessary words, however many may be employed. Brevity may be attained by leaving much unsaid ; conciseness tells it all, but tells it compactly. A concise discourse is like a well-packed trunk, which contains much more than at first sight it appears to do ; a brief discourse may be like a trunk half full ; short, because it is scanty. — WHATELY. A strict and succinct style is that where you can take away nothing without base, and that losse to be manifest. —BEK JONSON. Brevity is a means, not an end ; it is to be desired when it gives best expression to the thought, and only then. To assume that there is a special virtue in laconism is to imitate the absurdity of DiTden's line, My wound is great, because it is so small ; which Buckingham thus parodied, It would be greater, were it none at all. Conciseness is attained chiefly (i) by Pruning, and (ii) by Compression. b. (i. ) Pruningis possible in almost all composition to an extent that will amaze those who have not experimented. Not to speak of words like very (see page 227) that young writers sprinkle through their manuscript as from a pepper-box, phrase after phrase, clause after clause, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, will be found superfluous because they repeat, or excrescent because they are not a growth from the idea. "The three ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, " says Coleridge, "are Security to possessors, Facility to acquirers, and Hope to all. " Why this last clause ? It is not coordinate with the other two, but a result from them. It is not one of three ends, but the single end, to be attained by means of the other two. The Declaration of Independence is a famous document, but it begins with a similar blunder: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among theme are life, liberty, end the pursuit of happiness. Life ? yes ; liberty? yes ; but the pursuit of happiness ? Why is it an inalienable right ? How can you prevent a man from "pursuing" happiness ? You may help him to attain it, but how can you help him to " pursue " it ? The fact is, that in nearly half of the instances where three specifications are made, one of them is either superfluous or excrescent It is a sort of rhetorical rhythm to which mankind has become accustomed, that three specifications give a sounding rotundity to the close of a sentence ; so when only two are involved in the thought a third is tacked on for the sake of completeness. Economy of Attentionis the principle upon which the power of conciseness depends. This is a busy age. People are overwhelmed on all sides with things to see and to hear. Anyone thing that absorbs attention abstracts that attention from a thousand pressing objects, and must prove itself of more immediate importance than those objects. Hence the idea must be presented with as few wrappings as possible. The busy merchant will not stop to tear open a series of envelopes to get at a circular from an unknown correspondent—envelopes and all will go into the waste-basket. We are told that "brevity is the soul of wit. " We hear styles condemned as verbose or involved. Blair says that every needless part of a sentence "interrupts the description and clogs the image ; " and again, that "long sentences fatigue the reader's attention. " It is remarked by Lord Karnes that "to give the utmost force to a period, it ought, if possible, to be closed with the word that makes the greatest figure. " That parentheses should be avoided, and that Saxon words should be used in preference to those of Latin origin, are established precepts. But, however influential the truths thus dogmatically embodied, they would be much more influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In this, as in other cases, conviction will be greatly strengthened when we understand the why. And we may be Bare that a comprehension of the general principle from which the rules of composition result, will not only bring them home to us with greater force, but will discover to us other rules of like origin. On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may see shadowed forth in many of them the importance of economizing the reader's or hearer's attention. To so present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the desideratum toward which most of the rules above quoted point. When we condemn writing that is wordy, or confused, or intricate—when we praise this style as easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment. Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged in its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him requires part of this power ; to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a further part ; and only that part which remains can be used for realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be given to the contained idea, and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say "Leave the room" is less expressive than to point to the door. Placing a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering "Do not speak. " A beck of the hand is better than "Come here. " No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words. Again, it may be remarked that when oral language is employed, the strongest effects are produced by interjections, which condense entire sentences into syllables. And in other cases, where custom allows us to express thoughts by single words, anin Beware, Heigh°, Fudge, much force would be lost by expanding them into specific propositions. Hence, carrying out the metaphor that language is the vehicle of thought, there seems reason to think that in all cases the friction and inertia of the vehicle deduct from its efficiency, and that in composition, the chief, if not the sole thing to be done is to reduce this friction and inertia to the smallest possible amount. — Hmunurr SPENCER. The very same sentiment, expressed diffusely, will be admitted barely to be just ; expressed concisely will be admired as spirited. To recur to examples, the famous answer returned by the Countess of Dorset to the letter of Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State to Charles the Second, nominating to her a member for the borough of Appleton, is an excellent illustration : "I have been bullied, " says her ladyship, "by an usurper, I have been neglected "It wants that I "said Elk Joshua Reynolds of a picture, snapping his fingers. On the tomb of Bardanapalus is inscribed " PIUS on, stranger, eat, drink, and amuse thyself, for naught else is worth a fillip, " and a picture Is given of fingers maldng the same sign. by a court, but I will not be dictated to by a subject Your man shan't stand. "—Cemmtnat PHOLECITT. —There is an event recorded in the Bible which men who write hooka should keep constantly in remembrance. It is there set forth that many centuries ago the earth was covered by a great flood, by which the whole human race, with the exception of one family, were destroyed. It appears, also, that from thence a great alteration was made in the longevity of mankind, who, from a range of seven or eight hundred years, which they had enjoyed before the flood, were confined to their present period of seventy or eighty years. This epoch in the history of men gave birth to the twofold division of the antediluvian and postdiluvian style of writing, the latter of which naturally contracted Itself into those inferior limits which were better accommodated to the abridged period of human life and literary labor. Now to forget this event, to write without the fear of the deluge before his eyes, and to handle a subject as if mankind could lounge over a pamphlet for ten years, as before their submersion, is to be guilty of the most grievous error into which a writer can possibly fall. The author of this book should call in the aid of some brilliant pencil, and cause the distressing scenes of the deluge to be portrayed in the most lively colors for his use. He should gaze at Noah, and be brief. The ark should constantly remind him of the little time there is left for reading ; and he should learn, as they did in the ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very small compass. —STDSZT Sierra. De Quincey calls the German sentence an arch between the rising and the setting sun, and declares that one of Sant's sentences was found by a carpenter to be twenty inches long. Louis XIV. , who loved a concise style, one day met a priest, whom he asked hastily : "Whence come you ? Whither are you going ? What do you want ?" The priest replied, "From Bruges. To Paris. A benefice. " "You shall have it, " answered the king. (ii. ) Compression. —"One must study contraction as well as omission. There are many sentences which . would not bear the omission of a single word consistently with perspicuity, which yet may be much more concisely expressed with equal clearness by the employment of different words, and by recasting a great part of the expression. " Take, for example, such a sentence as the following : A severe and tyrannical exercise of power must become a matter of necessary policy with kings when their subjects are imbued with such principles as justify and authorize rebellion. This sentence could not be advantageously nor to any considerable degree abridged by the mere omission of any of the words; but it may be expressed in a much shorter compass, with equal clearness and far greater energy, thus : Hinge will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels fn. = principle. —aucessiz. EXERCISE. —Condense the following sentences by a change of form. Example. —They disputed who should be greatest. There arose a dispute among them, who should be greatest. I have a doubt whether the story be true. Generally a discussion arises whether a fee shall be paid. I am going to yonder gate to receive further direction how I may get to the place of deliverance. He gave us a long account how he bad hooked the fish. We are indebted to him for the suggestion as to making an abstract. Henry Smith failed, which astonished them. Conversation with you has satisfied me as to the fact. I had often received an invitation from my friend. If we know extensively, we shall operate extensively. Being cultivated mentally is important. The equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right angles is a previous assumption. Of the same nature with the indulgence of domestic affections, and equally refreshing to the spirits, is the pleasure which results from acts of bounty and beneficence, exercised either in getting money or in imparting to those who want it the assistance of our skill and profession. —Quoted by Banc The Degree of conciseness conducing to power depends largely upon the capacity of the class of readers addressed. It is remarked by anatomists that the nutritive quality is not the only requisite in food ; that a certain degree of distention in the stomach is required to enable it to act with its full powers, and that for this reason hay or straw must be given to horses as well as corn, in order to supply the necessary bulk. Something analogous to this takes place with respect to the generality of minds, which are incapable of thoroughly digesting and assimilating what is presented to them, however clearly, in a very small compass. Repetition in a condensed form of. an idea already expressed at length often produces the effect of conciseness. To an author who is in his expression of any sentiment wavering between the demands of perspicuity and of energy (of which the former, of course, requires the first care, lest he should fail of both) and doubting whether the phrase which has the most of forcible brevity will be readily taken in, it may be recommended to use both expressions : first, to expand the sense sufficiently to be clearly understood, and then to contract it into the most compendious and striking form. This expedient might seem at first sight the most decidedly adverse to the brevity recommended ; but it will be found in practice that the addition of a compressed and pithy expression of the sentiment which has been already stated at greater length will have the effect of brevity. For it is to be remembered that it is not on account of the actual number of words that diffuseness is to be condemned (unless one were limited to a certain space or time), but to avoid the flatness and tediousness resulting from it ; so that if this appearance can be obviated by the insertion of such an abridged repetition as is here recommended, which adds poignancy and spirit to the whole, conciseness will be practically promoted by the addition. —Wnsnera. In the following sentence Archbishop Whately violates the principle just laid down, putting the compact expression first. Universally, a writer or speaker should endeavor to maintain the appearance of expressing himself, not as if he wanted to say something, but self he had something to say; Le. , not as if he had a subject set him, and was anxious to compose the best essay or declamation on it that he could, but as if he had some ideas to which he was anxious to give utterance ; not as it he wanted to compose (for instance) a sermon, and was desirous of performing that task satisfactorily, but as if there was something in his mind which he was desirous of communicating to his hearers. EXCEPTION to the rule that conciseness is energy frequently occurs in description. (See pages 213, 250. ) Edmund Burke, in his speech con the Nabob of Arcot, describes the effects of the war carried on by the East India Company in the Carnatic territory. An unimaginative speaker, seeing things in what Bacon calls "dry light, " would have said, "The war was a war of extermination ; " this was the whole of it. An indignant and diffusive speaker, boiling over with his wrath, would have said, "The war Was murderous, inhuman, devilish. " His invective would have spent itself in epithets. But Burke, more forcible than either, compresses his indignation, has not a word to say of the character of the war, but describes the facts, and leaves them to speak for themselves. He says: When the British army traversed, as they did, the llamado for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. Energy of thought here requires particularity of detail ; therefore energy of expression requires many words. Sometimes a descriptive speaker needs to gain time for a thought to take hold of an obtuse hearer. Macaulay says of the effects of the French Revolution, "Down went the old church of France, with all its pomp and wealth. " This is forcible fact, forcibly put. But he intensifies it by saying, "The churches were closed ; the bells were silent ; the shrines were plundered ; the silver crucifixes were melted down ; buffoons dressed in surplices came dancing in the carmagnole even to the bar of the Convention. " By these details time is gained for the imagination to realize the main truth that the church was destroyed. Longinus illustrates the two styles here contrasted by the examples of Demosthenes and Cicero. He says, "Demosthenes was concisely, Cicero diffusely sublime. Demosthenes was a thunderbolt ; Cicero was a conflagration. "—PHELPS. TOPICAL ANALYSIS. Power. 1. In thought power depends on: • Sincerity, p. 448. • • Directness, p. 449. • 2. In arpression power depends on : • Plainness, p. 450. Bluntness, p. 451. Coarseness, p. 452. Distinction between bluntness and coarseness, 454. The velvet glove, p. 455. • • Conciseness, p. 458. • • Pruning, p. 457. Economy of attention, p. 457. • • Compression, p. 480. • Degree of conciseness, p. 481. Repetition, p. 482. Exceptions, p. 482. [[Category:Style]